The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.49 No.3 | December 2022

Member’s article

Who was James Dance of the Old Dolphin?

Following my investigation of the Will of James DANCE, victualler of the Old Dolphin Inn at Portsea, it seemed that there should be enough information available to trace his connection with other Dance families in Hampshire. However, this became a reminder to myself that terms like nephew and cousin did not always conform to modern usage. The appointment as one of James’ executors of a nephew, Daniel DANCE , yeoman of Copnor, seemed a useful starting point. However, while it had been possible to work out extensive family trees of the descendants of James Dance and of his “nephew” Daniel, confirming their precise relationship with each other and with the other Hampshire Dances proved more difficult. James evidently came to Portsea some time before his first marriage in 1779. Daniel DANCE was a farmer at Copnor in 1841 but he died in 1845; in 1851 his widow Lucy was a farmer of 72 acres, as well as being licensed to retail beer. Although already a “yeoman” when James made his Will in 1827, Daniel was a coal merchant of Portsea at the time he applied for a licence to marry Lucy SILVESTER on 20 March 1809, so he appears to have prospered and taken up farming later in life. Lucy was his second wife – he had already been living in Portsea when he married Rebecca LEVER in 1797; she was the mother of five of his eight children and died a few weeks before his second marriage (her burial was on 8 February). Daniel’s Will, made in 1837, provided another

clue as he and five of his children were to receive bequests from the Will, proved in that year, of a relative David DANCE of South Hayling, to come to them following the death of David’s wife Ann. David was a superannuated chief boatsman from the Water Guard Service of Great Britain, who had died without children in 1836. Neither David nor Daniel indicated how they were related. It seems most likely that they were cousins. Their respective ages fit with David being the son of William and Ann born at South Hayling in 1768 and Daniel being the son of Daniel and Lydia born at Wymering in 1774. Also a beneficiary of David’ Will was a cousin Thomas HYDE , providing another clue as a Mary DANCE had married a Thomas HIDE (sic) at Wymering in 1764; Thomas (and thus David’s cousin) was their eldest child born at Portchester in 1766. An older David DANCE also lived at South Hayling and died aged 87 in 1834, only 2 years before David junior died there aged 67. He and his wife Mary WHEELER , who married there in 1769, do not appear to have had children, unless a David Dance who died in infancy in 1770 was theirs. It seems from this evidence that William (father of David), Daniel senior, David senior and Mary were siblings, and it would be understandable to conclude that James Dance (as the “uncle” of Daniel junior) was their brother. Searching for a family with five children thus identified should be not too difficult. The name is relatively uncommon in Hampshire, though there were Dance families in at least a dozen parishes, the most longstanding and

111